From The Vault is back this week with a glorious Pop moment. Today’s pick is Katy Perry and Kanye West’s multi-dimensional smash, ‘E.T.’
Fresh from releasing three consecutive #1 singles, the stakes were high for the singer to bag herself another hit from her third album ‘Teenage Dream.’ To say she surpassed expectations would be an understatement, because ‘E.T.’ was another chart topping smash for the star in America.
Relating the story of an out of this world love affair, the song used a similar clap-clap-stomp beat as the one used in Queen’s monumental ‘We Will Rock You’ and yet threw a contemporary spin with dub step infused production. It saw Perry trade verses with Kanye West (who used autotune to potent effect).
The US wasn’t the only territory where the track was a chart hit: it was also a #1 record in Canada and Germany, a Top 3 in the UK and managed a #5 placing in Australia.
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Floria Sigismondi directed the song’s outlandish video which presented Katy as an alien slowly making her way to a post-apocalyptic planet earth and Kanye floating in the galaxy.
Model Shaun Ross is featured in the visual as Perry’s human love interest.
The visual was celebrated at the 2011 VMAs where it won the Best Collaboration and Best Special Effects awards.
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Retrospectively, it’s still quite amazing seeing just how untouchable Miss Katy Perry was for over half of the decade.
So much so that it’s difficult to decipher why things started trending south for the singer. After all, her tried and tested formula of big pop numbers, with a sparse sprinkles of urban have been a constant. That said, said reliance may be the problem in and of itself.
Anyhow, Team Katy seem to have done something right of late judging by the success of her hit single ‘Never Really Over.’ Hopefully for them they can find a new formula and reclaim that chart throne that she sat on for most of her decade-long mainstream run.